by Jeff LaSala
But the assassin had eluded him again. Its hand flashed out, the rapier blade stabbing forward yet again. Soneste cried out as she felt the air displaced by the blade and the spatter of warm liquid upon her face. Haedrun’s body twitched in her arms.
The assassin’s blade had punched clear through the woman’s neck.
“Oh, gods,” Soneste mouthed.
With Haedrun eliminated, the assassin changed its strategy. It pivoted and began to engage the Karrn. She could have sworn it was a feverish smile she saw upon Tallis’s face. Rage and frustration poured into his body, and she understood why he’d become the infamous man that he was. He knew how to read his opponent, even one as fast and deadly as this, and retaliate with a strategy of his own.
Soneste laid Haedrun upon the ground and backed away, trying to decided her next course of action. Tallis traded blow for blow with the assassin, accepting minor wounds from its rapier blades as he crashed his weapon again and again into the creature. The unmistakable clang of denting metal was proof of armor beneath its veil of shadow.
Feeling frustrated and impotent, Soneste drew forth her crysteel dagger. In her grasp, the exotic weapon seemed to resonate with kinetic power. Against this unnatural enemy, she would take whatever advantage she could get. It seemed impervious to both her mental powers and the wand Tallis had employed.
Though she could see no wounds in its shadowed form, Soneste believed the assassin was losing. With a half prayer to the Sovereign Host, she circled around the creature, ready for an opportunity to end it. For one fleeting moment, she met Tallis’s eyes. He nodded.
The assassin surged forward with both bloody weapons again, piercing Tallis in the leg. Soneste took that moment to strike. The crysteel disappeared into the shadow of its back and she felt it meet the resistance of a thin layer of metal then sink through. The assassin spun, sweeping its left blade low to trip her up.
But Tallis was ready. He arrested the swing, stepping hard upon the tip of the rapier with one boot, then he brought the pick’s head down in a two-handed grip. With a jarring shriek, something gave way. Soneste thought she felt a fine spray of cold liquid in the air, but it dissipated quickly.
She saw part of the assassin’s shadowed body break lose and heard it clatter to the floor. She expected to see blood, but there was none. The assassin’s left blade had vanished altogether.
The creature may have survived injuries that would have slain a mortal man, but it could only take so much punishment. Released from its brief restraint, the creature strode away. But Tallis had already sidestepped, anticipating a retreat. It halted, as if to consider its predicament. At the same time, its veil of shadow began to dissolve. She saw the glint of metal underneath.
To her surprise, the creature turned wordlessly back to face her. One rapier remained in its grip; the other gone with its missing hand. The assassin, its shadow unraveling more with each second, thrust its lone weapon toward her with supernatural celerity.
Soneste turned the blade aside, but it came in again.
Then a third time. She didn’t know how many times it struck, but she couldn’t parry fast enough against its speed. She heard Tallis call out, then a terrible fire erupted deep within her. She looked down in muted denial at the rapier blade that had somehow made its way into her body.
Her killer had become an armored knight of lissome form, a helmed dreamshape with a black-slitted visor. She wondered distantly if she had invented it in a state of delirium.
The world raced around her at a frightening pace, with clashing blades and whirling steel, but Soneste felt her part in it slowing down. Tallis shouted again, his voice sounding hushed, faraway. He implored her quietly and urgently to stay with him. The ground collected her, the shadows in the rafters above cajoled her.
And ushered her into a vast, empty sleep.
“Host, no!”
Tallis watched for only a second in shock as the Brelish slid from the assassin’s blade and dropped to the floor. The assassin made no second attack against her to finish her off as it had Haedrun. It turned and struck back at Tallis again, but its blows were feeble. Deliberately ineffective.
The last vestiges of its shadowed form dissolved, leaving him facing the same killer he’d met at the Ebonspire. He knew it couldn’t be a man or woman at all—there was a spirit or demon housed in that slender, steel-armored frame.
The assassin sprinted away from him. It was wounded now, the metal of its body caved in and pierced in ways that would have killed a living soul. Tallis started to pursue, knowing he could keep pace with it with his enchanted boots.
A glance back at Soneste told him she was alive still. Her cloak lay open, her shirt stained in blood, but she was still alive. If he left her now, she would die. Haedrun lay, staring into the shadows above with wide, unseeing eyes. She was gone already.
“Khyber!” he cursed, looking to the retreating assassin once more. The creature had leapt to one of the broken windows, aiming to flee to the docks. If he faced it again another day, he knew with grim certainty that it would be strong again.
“Another day, then,” he promised, seething with rage he could not express.
Tallis stowed his weapon and ran to Soneste. Stanching her wound the best he could, he searched hastily through her pockets for anything that might help but found only a single unidentifiable vial. If it wasn’t a healing draught, it could kill her instead. One of her pouches yielded the missing lens of his darkvision spectacles, which he pocketed quickly.
As he sheathed her rapier, he turned to look upon the aftermath of the fight. Haedrun, lying undignified in a pool of blood. The warforged, Aegis, immobile upon the ground. Cold night wind whistled through the jagged windows of the warehouse. Lying on the ground beside Haedrun was what appeared to be a hollow metal gauntlet—the assassin’s hand. He scooped it up and tucked it into a coat of his pocket, then he kneeled briefly beside the Red Watcher, touched a finger to her forehead, and quickly buckled her sword at his belt.
I will return for you, he promised.
Lifting Soneste into his arms, Tallis exited the building, staring up at the city. The bluffs rose like steps to the topmost tier, where the Cathedral of the Sovereign Host—and help—awaited. A maze of streets, White Lions patrols, and a race against the woman’s own heartbeat lay before him.
As he began his trek, Tallis thought of the pilgrim he’d encountered earlier, walking with his burden away from the docks of the city. The man’s friend had already been dead. One more corpse in the darkness of a Karrnathi autumn.
Aureon, he implored the night sky, keep this one alive. Please.
“Find Haedrun Kessler,” its master had said. The words still echoed through every fragment of its being, giving it purpose when there had been none moments before the order was given. “Follow Soneste Otänsin until she finds the man Tallis, who will in turn lead you to Haedrun.” Those last seventeen words had been unnecessary. It could have improvised the means of finding its quarry, but its master’s ignorance had narrowed down its options and led it to be damaged in an unnecessary fight.
“Silence Haedrun when you have found her and be sure she is dead before you return,” the voice had continued, giving the first objective a terminus. “Her usefulness has ended.”
It didn’t need or care for explanations. Motive was inconsequential, a useless quality of the listless denizens of the material world. It lived only for movement and function.
“Kill only this woman. Abort only if your own destruction is imminent, then return and report.”
Behind its master, the other construct had looked on without comment.
Chapter
EIGHTEEN
Law and Lore
Wir, the 11th of Sypheros, 998 YK
Soneste opened her eyes, remembering the visceral pain of sharp metal sliding into her belly. She pushed the blanket down and delicately probed her body. Bandages had been tightly wrapped around her stomach and waist. Only a dull ache remained, but her min
d recalled the agony with perfect clarity. She had trained her mind to store both images and words in her inquisitive work, but as a consequence even her unpleasant memories were often retained.
She was safe now, she felt that much. Where was she—a Jorasco house? Recovering from such a wound would have taken weeks naturally, so she knew magic been used to heal her. Her sharp eyes caught the shape of the Octogram carved in relief above the room’s only door, symbol of the Sovereign Host.
She sat up and looked around. The room was spacious and comfortable, with an outline of morning light framing heavy curtains high on the wall above her. The wall opposite her housed a tapestry, finely woven with threads of violet, red, and gold. In a corner between the two was a small table only large enough to accommodate the game board sitting there. Carved figures of rosewood and ebony, resembling kings and soldiers, were arrayed within alternating squares of light and dark—Conqueror, one of Karrnath’s favorite pastimes.
There was a mirror affixed to the final wall with a dim cold fire lantern ensconced beside it. Below that, her shiftweave clothing and gear had been neatly folded on a small table, along with her boots and satchel.
Her weapons were nowhere to be seen.
Soneste stood, ready to assess her whereabouts. As she moved, an echo of the pain returned. She sucked in a breath and steadied herself with one hand against the bedpost.
The door opened and a brown-haired elf wearing green vestments stepped into the room. He bore no obvious weapons but carried a cloth-wrapped bundle in his hands and a broadsheet rolled up beneath one arm. It didn’t look like the Korth Sentinel.
“I wouldn’t walk just yet,” he said. “Please, take your time. Recover your balance first. That’s key.”
Soneste was grateful to note that whoever had tended to her—this elf?—had left her undergarments in place. She’d spent more than one night in a Jorasco hospital before, and it had looked nothing like this. Their rooms were small, stark, and efficient; this one was amateur yet homey. The halflings of Jorasco were more professional, perhaps—and ultimately more effective—but they would have cared less about a dying woman’s modesty. A faint aroma lingered in the air, but it smelled more like incense than a healing poultice.
“I’m well enough,” she answered, sitting back down on the bed. If she couldn’t look around just yet, she would glean from this elf whatever she needed to know.
“The wound is cured, but some pain will linger. The blade scraped against one of your ribs. If you can wait a while longer, I will use a spell to take the edge off.”
“Do I have a choice in the matter?” she asked. “Or am I prisoner here?”
“You can choose to wait patiently,” he answered, lips curling into the hint of a smile. “Or you can choose to wait impatiently. I’d recommend the former.”
“You’re a priest,” Soneste said, then gestured to the room itself. “I’m somewhere beneath the cathedral, right?”
“I am a servant of Aureon, yes. My name is Lenrik Malovyn. It is a pleasure to meet you, Soneste Otänsin.” He did not confirm her location, but that was evident enough.
Soneste noticed a bronzewood amulet carved in the shape of an open book around his neck. Most priests of the Sovereign Host were not devoted to a single member of the Host, but she knew there were exceptions. Aureon was the Sovereign of Law and Lore, the god of knowledge and the patron of those who upheld order.
“And you are a friend to Tallis,” she said with a smirk, looking at the bed beneath her with a new light.
This is where the Karrn had hidden away the night before. Once she’d discovered his apartment, the basement of Aureon’s shrine must have become his only sanctuary. Lenrik Malovyn was, no doubt, one of the reasons the Justice Ministry had never caught this particular vigilante. The Civic Minister wouldn’t have looked to Korth’s own clergy.
She recalled the man she’d seen executed by the White Lion sergeant. Martial law was omnipresent in this city, in this whole nation. For consorting with a man wanted for murder and treason, what would Lenrik’s fate be if Soneste exposed him?
While investigating various locations within the city the day before, Soneste had stopped here in the Cathedral of the Sovereign Host. She’d spoken briefly to the Vassals—priests and laymen alike—and had heard from all of them in glowing terms about the heroine and high priestess who served as prelate to the cathedral.
“Tell me, do your superiors know that you, a priest of the god of law, harbor a man wanted for breaking many laws?”
“As it stands, Prelate Roerith does not.” Lenrik’s almond-shaped eyes looked much older than his youthful appearance. Like most humans, Soneste could not accurately guess an elf’s age. His face showed only the sleightest touch of time.
He sighed deeply. “Will you not cooperate, Miss Otänsin? Tallis wanted only to save your life. There are less savory places he could have brought you. As it is, he brought you to me. Did he err in this?”
Soneste flushed, but her shame only stoked her. “He should have brought me to the Jorasco enclave. I’m here in your city by request of the Justice Ministry and the King’s Citadel of Breland. Your government would have paid for my care.”
“All of the dragonmarked enclaves are under watch by the White Lions, and we were under the impression that you’d keep hunting him as soon as you were well enough to do so. The Justice Ministry would like to see him clapped in chains and brought to judgment—which is to say execution—and you have been trying to hasten that fate, haven’t you? I’m rather fond of Tallis, so I can’t say I disagree with his decision.”
“How do you know him?” Soneste asked. “Are you party to all his crimes?”
“You speak vaguely of past crimes,” the elf said, “but you know he’s innocent of the crime that brought you here, don’t you? It was a risk for him to bring you to me for healing, for my own reputation and his safety, a risk we were both willing to take.”
That’s putting it mildly, she thought. In her time sifting through the records at the Justice Ministry, she’d seen the unforgiving Code of Kaius cited frequently. Both Tallis and Lenrik would be swiftly tried and summarily executed.
“Alternatively, Miss Otänsin, he could have left you to die.”
Wait a moment, she thought. She’d only given Tallis her first name. “How is it you know my surname?” she asked.
The elf smiled, the expression seeming genuine. “Well, you have given a number of people in this city your full name recently. The Civic Minister’s writ leaves quite an impression in its wake, yet that is not how I know your name, Miss Otänsin.”
Lenrik held up the broadsheet he’d carried in with him. “I was particularly interested in the story of the missing royal aide, Shauranna Rokesko, who was kidnapped by the Order of the Emerald Claw and very nearly sacrificed.” He unrolled the packet and displayed its heading: The Sharn Inquisitive.
Soneste fell silent. She didn’t know what to say.
“Your investigations have made it into the public eye more than once,” Lenrik said. “Old loremongers like me tend to take interest in foreign affairs, especially fascinating stories like this one. So yes, I’ve read the name ‘Soneste’ before hearing it again last night when my friend Tallis carried an injured Brelish woman bearing the same name through the church doors.”
Soneste couldn’t meet his eyes.
Lenrik tapped the broadsheet again. “Shauranna Rokesko, from what I’ve heard within the faith, was a very special soul. Her presence in that meeting at Sovereign Towers was very important—more than you know—and you made that happen. You have a growing reputation for helping a great many people by saving a few.”
“Where is Tallis now?” she asked quietly.
“He’ll return soon. He went to pay his final respects to an old friend.”
Haedrun. The thought sent a wave of guilt crashing against her. She could still remember the warm blood of Tallis’s friend on her face, spilled so mercilessly. Even Aegis had fallen to the assassin
. Was he dead or merely incapacitated again? He hadn’t been in top shape in the first place.
“Haedrun was a Red Watcher,” he said sadly, “One of a number of men and women dedicated to the riddance of undeath from our nation. In the last days of the war, she lost her husband and two small children to the corrupting touch of ghosts. They were vengeful spirits raised by Karrn mages, but the necromancers themselves lost control of them. Commanding the dead is not a perfect art nor a righteous means to an end. The Red Watchers are a society devoted to purging this taint of undeath. With entities like the Ministry of the Dead still in power, you can imagine how this forces them to operate in the shadows.”
“So does Tallis,” she said, “but he isn’t a Watcher himself?”
“No. He has his own reasons, both for hating the undead and for not joining the Red Watchers.” Lenrik seemed to search the air for the correct words. “Most of the Watchers are not outlaws. Tallis has never wanted his problems to be anyone else’s. This is why I do not bring my colleagues into affairs like this. Their ignorance protects them.”
And you? Soneste wondered. How does a priest of the god of law justify lawlessness of any kind?
Lenrik pulled up a chair, sat, and looked directly at Soneste. “I know, this is coming from a priest. I won’t preach to you, Miss Otänsin. You aren’t a member of my congregation. I don’t even know if you consider yourself a Vassal, but you must understand that while necromancy has made Karrnath infamous to the rest of Khorvaire, it has also corrupted us from within. Priests of the Blood teach that the source of all life lies within people, within blood itself, and not with gods at all. It’s an attractive notion, certainly—that we need look only within, not without, to find all the answers we crave—but the Cultists of Vol go too far. They do not let the fallen lie in peace, instead raising them as champions to their cause. Undead creatures desire only to destroy, to kill, to take life. The king was right to sever all ties to the Cult when it grew too powerful, but it has never lost its grip on the nation.”
